Flirting with Disaster Read Free Page B

here?” he asked, wishing like hell he hadn’t had that fourth beer the night before. It had knocked him out so he could sleep, but it was muddying his thought processes now and something told him he was going to need all his wits about him before this conversation was over.
    â€œI need you to do me a favor,” Cord said.
    â€œA huge favor,” Dinah amended.
    Josh regarded both of them suspiciously. He turned his gaze on Dinah, since he had this gut-sick feeling she was the one who’d come up with this huge favor. Cord was a businesslike sort who laid things on the line, said what he needed and then left his crew to get the work done. Dinah was sneaky…or clever, depending on your point of view. Her mere presence here was enough to fill Josh with dread.
    â€œI am not going out with one of your friends,” Josh announced, since that was always what women seemed to want from him. They assumed that if he was single, he was lonely. He wasn’t, at least not in the way that made him accept blind dates intended to lead to something serious and permanent. In fact, he’d had enough experience with the female population to last him a lifetime. He was currently dedicating himself to a life of celibacy. Of course, he’d only been at it a week and it was already getting on his nerves, so the odds weren’t great he’d stick with it. Still, permanency was absolutely, positively out of the question, and that was the only thing any friend of Dinah’s was likely to be interested in.
    â€œOf course not,” Dinah said sweetly. “I would never dream of imposing on you like that, Josh. I don’t know you well enough to presume to know your taste in women.”
    Even though he’d only encountered Dinah a few times in his life, Josh knew for a fact she only laid on that thick, syrupy accent when she was lying through her teeth. Her mama was the same way. He’d run into Dorothy Davis a few times when he’d helped out with the renovations Beaufort Construction was doing at Covington Plantation, her pet historic preservation project. She’d always poured on enough syrup to send a man into a diabetic coma just before she moved in for the kill. Watching her work on Cord had given Josh all the lessons he needed to know to watch his backside around the Davis women.
    â€œWhat, then?” he inquired cautiously.
    â€œActually it’s going to be a real challenge, something downright rewarding,” Cord said in what sounded like an overly optimistic bit of spin. “We’re going to be building a house for a particular family and I need you to oversee the project. I’ll keep you on the company payroll, but everyone else will be volunteer labor.”
    â€œYou don’t build houses,” Josh said, trying to get a grasp on what Cord was saying. “You do historic renovation. So do I.”
    Cord’s lips twitched. “I’d say we both have enough skill to build a house from the ground up if we put our minds to it. Besides, this is a one-shot deal. I’m not asking you to take on an entire development in the suburbs.”
    Josh still couldn’t hide his bemusement. “I don’t get it. Why me? For that matter, how did you get sucked into this?”
    Cord cast a glance at his wife, which answered one question, then he leveled a look straight into Josh’s eyes. “I want you on this because the Atlanta renovations are finished and there’s nothing going on over there till we get that new deal finalized. The Covington renovations are almost done. I need to finish up out there if we’re going to keep my mother-in-law happy. She’s got some big gala scheduled in a month to show it off, and if every little detail isn’t just right, she’ll have my hide. You’ve got the time for this right now. I don’t.”
    â€œI do historic renovations,” Josh reminded him again. “I don’t build cute